Path

On the train today.  Reminded me of an earlier journey, from Dundee to Glasgow.....

Path

Elbow to elbow

Rhythmically sway

Packed in our box

Rush on our way

Fold up my papers

Tuck in my feet

Musn’t protrude

Outwith my own seat

Watch out for the trolley!

Pull in my knees

Triangular sandwiches

Biscuits and teas

Where is my ticket?

My coat’s on the shelf

So sorry, don’t worry

I’ll get it myself

And out there unfolding beyond the thick glass

Pale pink and gold blossoms on fragile spring grass

Banks rubbed by the whorls on the river’s broad back

And pools of white gold where the current is slack

And under bare arms of those spindly trees

A black path uncurls and seems to say “Please –

Please stroll on my now, in the thin golden air

Hear the river converse, feel the wind in your hair!”

But I would be empty, as one and not two

So I’ll wait till I walk there, together with you.

5.2.2012 Dead Pigeons as loft insulation (Millport, Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland)

Dead Pigeons as loft insulation

On TV they make it look so easy – fun even.  Teams of dungaree-clad, muscle rippling tradesmen stride up the path and in half an hour (including advertising breaks) the house is transformed from a rot infested, dank, old fashioned three bed semi into a sleek minimalist pad with double height ceilings, walls of glass, glittering recessed lighting, pristine white ceilings and calm, suave owners.    The before and after shots look as if someone has just pressed a button and hey presto, transformation.

So why is it that our attempt to refurbish our pretty Victorian cottage has already taken us a month and so far we appear only to have succeeded in creating dusty chaos throughout.  We started by inviting our local timber specialist, Angus, to squirm down a minute hatch under the floor, where he found no rot but offcuts of timber that the original builders left lying about in 1897.  No point submitting a complaint however.  As we say here, ‘The man who did that has’nae got a headache noo’.    

Angus then wriggled himself up the tiny aperture into our tiny loft.  There he encountered the comfortable abode of numerous generations of pigeons, whose nests, feathers, unhatched eggs and even three and a half desiccated corpses were providing a somewhat unwholesome layer of insulation above the bedrooms.  A whole new meaning to the phrase 'pigeon loft'.  So Bill, masked like Darth Vader, ascended the ladder, and, not being as slim as Angus, coaxed his ample form through the limited space, clutching a bucket and rubber gloves, and anticipating that he would be up there till he lost enough weight to get back down again.  Several hours and eight bulging black sacks later, the loft was clean.  So now we are insulating it with massive thick brown cushions of fibre glass.  These were purchased at an unbelievably low price owing to the generosity of the government, which is anxious to save money by reducing the number of elderly couples that need to be thawed out courtesy of the National Health Service.

So now half the loft is insulated, and I am getting used to the ladder in the bathroom, the black polythene which is carpeting the kids’ bedroom, the mattress propped against my wardrobe such that I have to grope for my clothes and be prepared to wear whatever I pull out, sight unseen.  Then there’s the cupboard in the hall where the chair should be, and that same chair temporarily re-homed in front of the TV making viewing just a little tricky.  And the spare bed, empty of bedding and upended precariously.  And of course the dust, fine and clinging, covering everything with a light, greyish powder.   

And the fact that you can’t find anything.   The stapler is as likely to be in the vegetable rack as on the desk; that red screwdriver that was definitely on the bookcase in the hall yesterday is in fact in the sock drawer, and what on earth is that scarf doing in the coal bucket??

And this is only month one – insulation.  We still have to put up the special wallpaper, do the plaster repairs, the painting, re-carpeting, re-curtaining, installation of central heating, total repaint of the outside, digging out the garden, repairing the woodwork on the dormer.  That’s assuming I haven’t forgotten anything.  Makes me exhausted just to think of it.   Why can’t that team of dungaree-clad, muscle rippling tradesmen stride up my path I’d like to know.  But I have just noticed that my own personal dungaree-clad muscle rippling man is no longer snoozing peacefully by the fire.  A distant rumbling and bumping indicates that he is roosting in the loft again.  Maybe pigeon comforts have something to commend them after all.

Wednesday February 1st. Ice Flowers and Silent Pines

Ice Flowers and Silent Pines

I saw them as soon as I opened the blind in the sloping attic bathroom window – like tiny white daisies, scattered across the pane in the night.  Frost flowers, delicate and transitory, edged the pane, framing the picture beyond.  A picture of grey green grass, dappled with icy diamonds; of trees, bare of leaves, their delicate twigs a fretwork against a sky of clear, duck-egg blue; of dark hills rimmed with black pines; of grey cottages, smoke rising ramrod straight from their stubby chimneys.  Just out of sight, I visualise the Cairngorm Mountains, huge pillows of white, appearing soft, belying their granite hearts.

Cairngorms under snow

It’s over 20 years since we bought our week in the winter days of Speyside.  We first came the year my father died.  We couldn’t face New Year without him – the family parties on Hogmanay in the tiny cottages on Loch Fyneside where we stayed, near to my parent’s house, to see the New Year in.  I can see them yet - the children spending all day preparing party pieces, the laughter as ridiculous sketches were rehearsed; bending down to dance the Dashing White Sergeant with wee partners, whirling little hands in Strip the Willow.  My sister and family came from Ireland each year to join us all.  Once I remember Douglas and Alison performing Highland and Irish dancing together in front of the log fire.  And then the New Year dinner – a scrum of sixteen adults and kids crushed around the table.  Broth, steak pie, trifle, black bun; my mother sipping her sherry, the one and only alcoholic drink of her year.

But when he was gone, we knew all that was all gone too, that we’d have to find other ways of doing family.  And we did.  But that first year after he went, we came here, to Abernethy, for the first time.  And we’ve been coming ever since, for 26 Januaries.

Rosie

Some years I have come alone, and worked to author reports or design research, breaking to walk through the forests of Scots pine, cathedral-like in silence; other years Bill and I have come together, reading by the fire as snow swirled past the wide glass doors, huge soft flakes covering the sloping grassy bank that leads down to the lochan, slate grey in the winter light.  Other Januaries have seen tiny babies curled in our arms – Ben at 12 days old, Molly at six weeks, Rosie at ten weeks.  Toddlers have splashed in the small swimming pool, children have tumbled giggling off sledges, groups of adults and kids have laughed uproariously at board games around the oval pine table.  One year we walked along the old railway track to Grantown, Molly high on Calum’s back.  Wide expanses of fields and rough grasses stretched out on either side, reaching from the silent birch woods on one side to the dark broad waters of the River Spey on the other, deep and deceivingly calm, only occasional whorls on the surface denoting the urgency which rushes it towards the distant sea.  

Walking to Grantown

The red squirrels flicker up wide trunks; roe deer, unexpected across the road ahead or silent at the edge of the trees near the lochan; rabbits whose burrows pock mark the grass; crows caw, the fluttering sheen of their black wings; at night the stars, unearthly bright; once, the northern lights – the heavenly dancers – silken skirts of red, green, gold, whisking across the velvet darkness in an ethereal waltz.    

This week has been a thread woven through the family’s life for decades.  It’s a recurring verse – a chorus - in the poem of our family life.